#47 Howell Binkley

This week’s guest is one of the busiest designers on Broadway, it’s Lighting Designer Howell Binkley! Cory and Howell touch on many of his recent and past work including his award winning design for ‘Hamilton’, revisiting ‘How to Succeed…’ again 15 years later, and how his dance background informs his designs. He also discusses whether there is such a thing as a “Broadway lighting design”, how he interacts with his longtime Associates and Programmers, what his process is for laying out a new plot, and the emotional toll of creating art that can so easily be washed away in an instant, as was the case with his recent work on ‘Dr. Zhivago’. And learn how a different path nearly led Howell to become…wait for it…a mime!

Howell Binkley’s Broadway designs include the upcoming Hamilton and Allegiance, Honeymoon in Vegas, After Midnight (Tony Nom),A Christmas Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, Memphis, West Side Story (Tony Nom), Guys and Dolls, In The Heights (Tony Nom), Gypsy– directed by Arthur Laurents, CryBaby, LoveMusik, Xanadu, Jersey Boys (Tony Award Winner), Avenue Q, Bridge and Tunnel, Dracula, Steel Magnolias, Golda’s Balcony, Hollywood Arms, The Look of Love, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, Minnelli on Minnelli, The Full Monty, Parade, Kiss Of The Spider Woman (Tony Nom), Taking Sides, How To Succeed…, High Society and Grease. Off-Broadway works include: The Tin Pan Alley Rag, Landscape of The Body at The Signature, Sinatra at Radio City, Batboy: The Musical, Never The Sinner and Radiant Baby.

Mr. Binkley is a proud co-founder of Parsons Dance for which he has designed over 60 pieces. He has created works for The La Jolla Playhouse, The Shakespeare Theatre D.C., The Alley Theatre, The Old Globe, The Guthrie, The Goodman, The Hartford Stage, The Seattle Repertory Company and The Kennedy Center where he designed six musicals in repertory for The Sondheim Celebration. Dance: Alvin Ailey, MoMix, Peter Pucci Plus, American Ballet Theatre, Hubbard Street Dance and The Joffrey Ballet (Billboards). Binkley has also designed works for The Dallas and The Metropolitan Opera Houses.

He is a five-time Helen Hayes Award recipient and was awarded the 1993 Sir Laurence Olivier Award and the Canadian Dora Award for Kiss of The Spider Woman. Mr. Binkley was given the 2006 Henry Hewes Design Award, 2006 Outer Critics Circle Award and the 2006 Tony Award for Jersey Boys. Originally from Winston-Salem and a proud graduate of East Carolina University